A Novel Idea
by B.A. Tyler
Summary: The folks of the 4077th are bored out of their minds, so Hawkeye comes up with an unusual project to keep everyone occupied. Updated with the final three chapters. Now complete!
1. Chapter 1

**A Novel Idea**

Chapter One

Hawkeye looked at B.J., his expression grave, and said, "I need your help on this, Beej."

"Bright, young surgeon like you… you need _my_ help? Come on. I'm sure you can tackle this yourself."

"No, really. I'm at a loss here. Be a pal, huh? I'm asking nicely."

B.J. sighed and moved to sit next to Hawkeye on his cot. "All right, lemme see what you've got so far." He reached out and took the notepad from Hawkeye's hands. There was nothing written on it. "Wait a minute, you haven't even _started_ yet? You've been sitting here for the past hour and you don't even have a single word written yet?"

Hawkeye gave him a look that was somewhere between chagrined and defensive. "Why do you think I asked for your help? This is driving me crazy."

"Too late for that," B.J. quipped lamely, and Hawkeye didn't even dignify it with a response.

"Bad case of writer's block," Hawkeye lamented.

"I can see that."

"So help me out here. Let's toss some ideas around, maybe something will stick."

B.J. leaned back on Hawkeye's cot and stared at the Swamp ceiling. "OK, first of all, let's go back and review the rules we all agreed on when you came up with this brilliant idea." He laced the word "brilliant" with a smidge of sarcasm. As he spoke, he ticked the rules off on his fingers, "Everybody writes one chapter. It can't be a war story. It can't take place in Korea. Oh, and Father Mulcahy doesn't want it to have any sex or vulgar language. Was that it?"

Hawkeye nodded. "That was pretty much it. Sounds easy, doesn't it? The problem is, I'm the one who has to _start_ it. That is not the piece of cake you might think it is."

They fell silent for a while as they each considered, and rejected, story ideas. After a few minutes, B.J. suddenly sat up, rubbed his hands together, and said, "Hey, I've had a thought! I think this could be something. Hawkeye Pierce, put your pen at the ready, because here we go…"

* * *

The slim, dark-haired, dashingly handsome young man sat at his desk, behind a door that was stenciled with the words: Harvey Peterson, Private Investigator, "Finest Kind." He had just bitten into his lunch, barbecued spareribs from Adam's Ribs right around the corner on Dearborn, when he heard a purposeful knock on his door. _Oh dammit,_ he thought chewing around his rib, as it were. _Why can't I ever just eat in peace around here?_ With a sigh, he set aside the crossword puzzle he'd been working on. He was stuck anyway. What the heck was a five-letter Yiddish word for bedbug?

"Come in!" he called, spitting some sauce onto his desk. It joined other stains that had crusted there over the years.

He stopped in mid-chew as a voluptuous blonde sauntered into his office and sat down, flinging her silver lamé purse onto her lap. She was wearing an almost shockingly short navy blue skirt, and a powder blue angora sweater… with a zipper down the back. _I wonder what that's for, _Harvey found himself thinking. "Can I help you, miss?" he asked, swallowing. His mouth had suddenly gone dry in the presence of such beauty and sensuality. Or it might have been the spareribs, which were seriously lacking in sauce today.

"I need to hire you, detective," she said, her voice breathy, as he'd figured it would be. "Someone is trying to kill me. I need you to find out who, and why!"

"What makes you think somebody wants you dead, miss… uh?"

"Babbitt. Gloria Babbitt. Because, detective, my breakfast was poisoned, a snake was coiled in my kitchen cupboard ready to strike, I narrowly missed being flattened by a falling piano on the street, and a ferocious dog chased me for blocks! And that was just today!"

"Oh dear. If all of that really happened, isn't this a case for the police?" Harvey wondered, doubting her story but enjoying her presence in his office.

"They don't believe me. They think I'm acting."

Suddenly Harvey realized why this woman looked so familiar and why her name had rung a distant bell. "Hey, you're that actress! That Hollywood actress who was in, uh…" He snapped his fingers, trying to remember her blockbuster film from a few months back.

She helped him out. "_The Woman Who Thought Someone Was Trying to Kill Her_." Harvey nodded, and she nodded back sadly. "You can see why I'm having problems with the police."

"Yes, indeed." He held out the carton of cole slaw (because you don't _ever_ order from Adam's Ribs and not get cole slaw), silently offering her some, but she shook her pretty little head. "Well, the obvious question now is, do you have any enemies, Miss Babbitt?"

"Please, call me Gloria," she purred, batting her eyelashes at him. This dame had the femme fatale act down pat. "No, detective. I really don't. I haven't any idea why I'm a target, and that's why I want to hire you. Will you do it?"

He looked across the desk at her, all blonde and pouty and needy, and he knew there was really no decision to be made. "Of course, Gloria. I'll be happy to help."


	2. Chapter 2

**A Novel Idea**

Chapter Two

Margaret Houlihan let out a frustrated sigh as she finished reading the first chapter of the as-yet unnamed 4077th novel. "Pierce and Hunnicutt," she murmured to herself, shaking her head. "Those two adolescents. Leave it to them."

Still, one of the rules they had all agreed upon was: no changing previous chapters. And no complaining about them, either. Her job, as she saw it, was to take what they had done so far (_Juvenile as it is,_ she thought) and improve upon it. Make chapter two more interesting and less silly. "Should be no problem," she said out loud in her empty tent. "Even a chimpanzee could improve on what they've done."

She put pen to paper.

* * *

Gloria Babbitt only _appeared_ to be a damsel in distress. In reality, she was a fiercely independent woman who could, under most circumstances, take care of herself. The poisoned breakfast? She recognized the tainted meal right away, and induced vomiting. The snake coiled in her cupboard? She grabbed it behind its head and threw it outside, into the weeds. The falling piano? Well yes, that one nearly got her, she had to admit. And the dog? She outran him once she'd kicked her high heels off her feet.

The problem was, she had no idea who was trying to kill her. She'd never crossed anyone, she hadn't made any enemies on the sets of any of her movies, and she spent most of her free time performing charity work at various hospitals. Who would want her dead? She couldn't fathom it.

For three weeks, Harvey Peterson followed her every move, trying to track down the culprit, but it was a fruitless surveillance. The threats on her life had apparently stopped just as quickly as they'd started, and she was starting to think she no longer needed the services of her dogged and trusty P.I.

Except there was one tiny problem with that. She'd fallen for him. Oh, she realized she'd only known him for three weeks, but that didn't matter. They'd shared enough conversations and lingering looks to know they had a very mutual attraction. She couldn't imagine suddenly cutting him loose.

At the end of another uneventful day (as far as attempts on her life went), she approached him and smiled alluringly at him. "Harvey? Please come up to my apartment and let me make you some supper. You've had a long, boring day, and you must be starved."

He visibly swallowed and nodded mutely at her, and she knew she'd read the situation correctly.

So she made him supper and they ate by candlelight, laughing and sharing stories about their childhoods. And when the hour grew late and the candles burned out, they cuddled together on the couch, where one kiss turned to two, and two turned to three…


	3. Chapter 3

**A Novel Idea**

Chapter Three

"Oh dear," Father Mulcahy said out loud as he neared the end of Margaret's chapter. "I thought I asked them not to go into such… sexy detail." He could feel his face redden a little. "It's only kissing, I know, but my word! I'm not going to read _that_ section again!"

He tapped his pen against the notepad and thought. This story seemed to be meandering. But one thing was for sure: it certainly wasn't going to be up to _him_ to keep it on track. He couldn't continue the romance that Margaret had started, no sir. Perhaps it was time to introduce a new character.

* * *

The knocking at the door was insistent, and Father Mooney hurried to answer it. He flung open the door and a man he'd never seen before stepped into the church.

"Can I help you, young man?" he asked, a little unsettled by the late-night visit.

"I'm sorry, Father, I know you've locked the church up for the night. But I need to make a confession. It can't wait. Is that all right?"

"Of course, my son. Please come this way."

Once inside the confessional, Father Mooney said, "You may begin, my son."

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I, uh…"

"That's all right, son. Take all the time you need."

"Oh, I'd better just blurt it out, Father. I need to do this before I lose my nerve. I was trying to kill a woman, Father! Me! Can you believe it? I poisoned her food and put a dangerous snake in her kitchen and nearly dropped a piano on her, for crying out loud! Oh yeah, and I set an attack dog on her, too. Can't forget that one." All of that came out in a rush, after which the man took a few much-needed breaths. Father Mooney was too stunned to say anything at all. The stranger continued, "Lucky for me, she survived all of it. But I was supposed to keep trying to kill her. I wasn't supposed to give up. I did, though—give up, I mean. I don't want to kill anyone. I don't even know her!"

"What do you mean, you were supposed to keep trying? According to whom?"

"The person who hired me. I was paid 100 grand to try to kill this woman. This actress. I still have the money, but I don't want it, Father. Can I give it to the church?"

Mooney sat there, his heart pounding, his head spinning. This had certainly shaped up to be an interesting evening.


	4. Chapter 4

**A Novel Idea**

Chapter Four

Charles Emerson Winchester III was chuckling to himself as he read the last chapter, the one written by Father Mulcahy. He had barely digested the final word when he picked up his pen and began to scribble madly.

* * *

"You ought to put that money into stocks, young man," the good Father advised. "Invested properly, it will appreciate beyond your wildest dreams. You would likely never need to work again… and you certainly wouldn't have to take on any more contemptible assignments such as murdering comely actresses for no reason that you're aware of. Now, taking a look at a few of the more profitable stocks out there, let's do some simple calculations and see just how much of a windfall you could expect in 2-, 4-, and 6-year increments…"

* * *

"Winchester!" Potter called out, but it was too late. The major had already left his office and was no doubt quite pleased with himself for mucking up a perfectly good story with deadly dull investment strategies. Potter rolled his eyes but then remembered the rules: no changing previous chapters, and no complaining, either.

"What a pip," he said out loud. "Just where in blue blazes am I supposed to take this tale now?"

* * *

Their horses clip-clopping along at a leisurely pace, Gloria Babbitt and Harvey Peterson chatted amiably and admired the pretty purple-pink sunset in the clear Arizona sky. Suddenly the sound of gunfire pierced the air.

"Oh my God, somebody's after me again!" shrieked Gloria as her horse reared up at the sound.

"Don't panic!" Harvey told her, trying to calm both horses as best he could. Which, any horseman could have told him, was a lost cause. When horses are spooked, they're spooked, and there's no talking sense to them.

Gloria's horse bucked and threw her off, and she landed on the ground with a thud. Harvey called out her name and dismounted his own animal, going to her side to see if she was all right. "Gloria? Darling?"

Then came another round of gunfire, and Harvey whirled around to see what in tarnation was going on. Three men on horses galloped up to them, seeming to materialize from out of nowhere. "Hey there!" one of the men called out. "You're ridin' in dangerous territory here, folks. We wasn't shooting at ya, but y'all could get caught in the crossfire, if you ain't careful." He spat onto the ground before he continued. "You might not'a seen 'im, but that was outlaw Jesse Jameson that just rode on through here, and we're out to capture 'im! Y'all are OK, ain't ya?"

Harvey, kneeling next to Gloria, double-checked with her to be sure. She nodded, but she didn't look too steady. "Yeah, we're OK."

"Well all right, then." The man spat again, then turned to his cohorts and waved his arm. "C'mon, let's git after that bastard!" And the three of them rode off in a cloud of dust, their horses looking magnificent, with manes flowing and tails high.

"See that, dear?" Harvey said, patting Gloria's arm, trying to calm his beloved. "Just a false alarm. Nobody's trying to kill you. They're after some outlaw."

But she was shook up good and Harvey could see that their evening of horseback riding was going to have to come to an end. She needed to lie down and rest.

* * *

"Oh cow manure!" Potter exclaimed as he threw down his pen. He'd managed to bore even himself with his own chapter, and worse yet, he didn't know where to go from here. The lovebirds were out in the middle of nowhere with spooked horses (or have the horses galloped off by now? Potter didn't know), and the shoot-em-up part was over with already. "Damn," he muttered. "This writing thing ain't as easy as you'd think. That Zane Grey was a word-wielding _genius_."

He stared at his last sentence for a few more minutes, waiting for inspiration to strike, but it never did. Finally he shrugged and wrote "end of Potter's chapter" at the bottom of the page, and took the novel-in-progress to the next scribe on the list.


	5. Chapter 5

**A Novel Idea**

Chapter Five

Max Klinger didn't know anything about horses, except that Sophie liked the occasional apple, but was that even normal for a horse? He didn't know, he was just a guy from Toledo. Picking up his pen, he decided that Harvey and Gloria's little adventure in the Arizona desert was over.

* * *

The press had gotten wind of the attempts on Gloria's life, even though to her, it was old news by now, and reporters started to hound her day and night to get the full story. Weary from all the recent danger in her life, she didn't have the energy to fend them off, not even with her cute little silver lamé purse. So she called a press conference to get the whole matter out in the open, once and for all.

"Yes, it's true," she said into the microphones shoved in front of her face, "that I was the target of some kind of crazy assassination attempt. But I hired a good man, a very dear, sweet man, to investigate the situation, and since then, there have been no further attempts on my life. That's all I have to say."

But the reporters weren't happy—are they ever?—and they hurled questions at her from all sides.

"Gloria, don't you want the person responsible brought to justice?" one of them shouted out.

She tried to shrug it off. "I'm just glad it's over with."

"But what if the whole thing starts up again?" another reporter inquired.

"Then I'll put my dear Harvey Peterson back on the case, of course!"

"Gloria!" called the gossip columnist from _Hollywood Tattles_. "Gloria! Can you tell us who designed that gorgeous satin gown you're wearing?"

"Oh, this little thing? This is by Klinger's of Toledo." She twirled around and struck several poses, showing off the stunning crimson color, the flattering plunging neckline, the fetching just-below-the-knee hem. "Isn't it precious?"

"Klinger's? Is that with a K or a C?"

"K-l-i-n-g-e-r. Tell 'em I sent you. They're marvelous. I have them design all my clothing."


	6. Chapter 6

**A Novel Idea**

Chapter Six

"Klinger, you're not a'sposed to put yourself into the story!" Radar complained after he finished reading.

"Says who? I don't remember that rule. We're not supposed to write about Korea or the war. Nobody said nothin' about keeping our names out of it." The hairy corporal stalked off before Radar could say anything more.

Radar sighed and shook his head, thinking, _Amateur!_ He remembered a lot from his correspondence course with the Famous Las Vegas Writers School, but he also remembered that Colonel Potter had said, "Just be yourself." He thought long and hard, and then he smiled and started to write.

* * *

Harvey walked into Gloria's apartment with a strange woman by his side. "Gloria," he said, pointing at the woman, "this is Edna, and she's a sykick."

(Radar didn't think that looked right, so he had to spend the next 10 minutes searching for a dictionary, finally finding one in the Swamp. Then for another 20 minutes he tried to find the word he wanted in the S section. Then Cap'n Hunnicutt came in and asked if there was something he could help with. After Radar explained, B.J. said, "Look under P." Talk about a lot of time wasted trying to get help from the dang dictionary!)

"She's a psychic?" asked Gloria. "What do we need her for?"

"She's going to solve your case. She does that—she can use her ESP to tell who's committing crimes when the police are stumped. And like that."

Gloria gave him a weird look. "But nobody's trying to kill me anymore, remember?"

Harvey said, "I know, but the press will keep on bugging you about this until the person is caught, so we might as well get him caught, don't you think?"

"Oh, all right," Gloria finally agreed. Wanting to be neighborly, she got her guest a Grape Nehi from the fridge. "What do you need me to do, Edna?"

"Just give me your hand, child," the psychic said in a low, spooky voice. "I will get my visions from the touch of your hand."

Gloria thought that sounded like a bunch of hooey, but she held out her hand anyhow, and the psychic took hold of it. In no time at all, the psychic began to get all shaky and red in the face, and Gloria said, "What? What is it, Edna?"

"I know who was trying to kill you! A man named Charles Lamb was hired to kill you, but it wasn't his idea. Honest. The person who hired him was…"

"Who? Who?" asked Gloria, practically jumping out of her skin.

"That farmgirl you used to be best friends with back in Ottumwa, Iowa, when you were growing up. Her name is something like Susan or Sarah…"

"Sally?"

"Yes. Sally. She's very jealous that you grew up to be such a big movie star, and so pretty, and popular all over the world, while she still has to work on a farm in Ottumwa, from dawn until late at night, working her fingers to the bone. She's very jealous, and she wanted you dead!"

Gloria sat back and let out an "Oof!" of surprise. She hadn't even thought about Sally from Ottumwa in years and years. "I can't believe it. Poor, poor Sally."

Harvey patted her on the shoulder. "More like sick, sick Sally. We have to report this to the Iowa police, and they'll take her into custardy

(Radar didn't realize the misspelling.)

and she will have to go to jail, Gloria. She did a bad thing and she has to pay for it."

Gloria sat there and shook her head, sad to think that an old friend of hers had tried to have her killed and that she would have to go to jail, and then who would take care of her farm?

Harvey turned to the psychic. "Thank you for being the hero, Edna. People with ESP are very special and gifted and shouldn't be taken for granted. We appreciate your good work."


	7. Chapter 7

**A Novel Idea**

Chapter Seven

Hawkeye finished reading the novel-in-progress to B.J. and dropped the pages to the Swamp floor, disbelief etched on this face. "How the hell did this story get so out of control, Beej?"

B.J. laughed softly. "Are you kidding? I'm amazed it makes _that_ much sense!"

"A psychic?"

"Could've been worse. Could've been a teddy bear who broke the case."

Hawkeye rolled his eyes. "Well we're supposed to wrap this damn thing up. You and I. Us!" He gestured between them, as if B.J. didn't know who "you and I" meant. "How are we gonna do that, pray tell?"

B.J. spread his hands as if it should be painfully obvious. "I think there's only one possible way we _can_ end this story, Hawk."

* * *

Six months later, Harvey and Gloria were married in a simple ceremony underneath the Hollywood sign on a spring day that sparkled like good gin. Father Mulcahy (_not_ Father Mooney, who had since gone on a religious retreat in the Adirondacks to cleanse his soul, though he really hadn't done anything wrong) presided. Max Klinger (who provided the bride's simple but beautiful lace wedding gown) was the maid of honor, since Gloria's oldest friend, Sally, was serving 10-20 years in an Ottumwa, Iowa, prison for conspiring to murder.

Fueled by all the publicity from Gloria's high-profile case, Harvey's P.I. business took off. Suddenly people from around the globe were calling to hire him, and within months, he had a staff of 20 investigators, posh offices in Beverly Hills, and more cases to solve than he'd ever imagined.

Gloria found herself even more in demand in Hollywood, because being the target of a hired killer does that for an actress's career. Over the next year, she made four films, all of them huge box-office hits.

Edna the psychic wrote a book about her role in the case, embellishing more than a little.

Somehow, would-be assassin Charles Lamb was never apprehended in the case. He likely still has the 100,000 dollars that Sally paid him (perhaps he invested in the stock market and perhaps not)… and where on earth a struggling Iowa farmgirl had gotten that kind of cash is anyone's guess.

And as for the fate of that outlaw Jesse Jameson? Well, that's a whole other story entirely.

**The End**

_(Author's Note: I know this was a bizarre little story, so thanks to those who read to the end! It was way too much fun to write.)_


End file.
